Archives for posts with tag: time
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Lemming Time

May 29, 2015 //
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There is a certain time that kills your productivity in work and life. I call it the Lemming Time, after the animals that are supposed to jump off cliffs in droves to their deaths.

You know the Lemming Time when you see it. It doesn’t happen every time and it’s hard to predict. You might be driving your car in town and it seems like every few metres a car is trying to turn into your path, a pedestrian is attempting an ill-advised crossing or people’s rushed behaviour turns erratic and mildly dangerous. It’s the time of day when everyone has decided they simply have to get something urgent done, yourself included.

It happens in work as well. A deadline is looming, you’re getting close, and suddenly the replies come in, the phone calls, emails, requests for a quick chat. Everyone else getting to the finish line of their own thing needs a quick interaction or two with someone else before they can put their thing to bed. All of a sudden you’re in a funk, that 3-syllable word that starts in cluster and ends in an anglo-saxon word for sexual coition. Bad for your productivity and peace of mind.

Avoid the Lemming Time. Plan better.

 

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Categories Customers, General

Still Looking, Still Striving

November 28, 2014 //
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There is a terribly famous song by U2 called ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’ Those of you – and I count myself among you – who don’t live to work, as opposed to work to live, may well identify with the lyric in the song.

I know people who go through an entire life without finding what they’re looking for career-wise.  Are their lives the lesser for it, do they feel unfulfilled as a result? No and no, at least they shouldn’t.

Searching for perfection in life, in work, in every single project or activity you turn your hand to, is an important means in itself, not a means to an end.

It’s unlikely we can achieve true perfection in anything, nor is it healthy or productive to try beyond a certain point, but it’s the looking for perfection, the striving for what we think the end goal is, that keeps us improving, keeps us working, keeps us alive even. Hunger for the new, the next big thing, stops us standing still and sustains the quality in the work we do.

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Categories Communication, General, Marketing, Sales

Friday 5pm

November 21, 2014 //
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What do you use Fridays at 5pm for? As long as the day hasn’t blown up, or they don’t work with others who are a few hours behind their time zone, it can often be a great time to communicate with people since they’re generally putting the working week to bed and looking forward to the weekend.

Consider the following:

– they’re more inclined to read your email as it comes in and follow your call to action

– they will respond better to a call from you that doesn’t require them to do much (for example, commit to a meeting, or agree to do something in the future)

– they will remember a ‘thank you for your business’ or a ‘have a great weekend’ note

– they’ll appreciate a summary of what one of their more organised direct reports has got done this week

– they’re a sucker for good news, especially news that helps them redress the work-life balance at the weekend

– they’ll be happier to acquiesce to your small favour because they’re too shattered or time-constrained to start the next big thing on their list

Last thing on a Friday, contrary to what you might think, is often a good opportunity to reach out to someone important to you. Use the slot wisely.

 

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Categories Customers, General, Sales

The Bureaucracy of Big Companies

October 29, 2014 //
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Working with big companies is not like working with small companies. The reasons are obvious of course, and it’s probably why large organisations try – and often fail – to engender a fast-moving and entrepreneurial culture.

Big companies have deeper pockets, so the rewards are bigger, but you also need to factor in the risks, the processes, the number of people involved in working with you, because they’re all deeper as well.

It simply takes longer to get things done.

A few years ago I worked in the tech security space, getting case studies written up with customers. The smaller the customer, the quicker the sign-off, the easier the process. It’s a joy working for smaller companies that can take decisions quickly. The downside is that their ‘logo’ carries less weight than a ‘battleship’ blue chip that takes you what seems like an eternity to turn around.

Make sure you have a good balance of small, medium and large sales opportunities in your sales pipeline. The big deals are great when they come in, but you can’t afford to have your hopper full of big slow-moving deals that can easily get stuck and leave you flapping in the breeze. If you can make your number from the small and medium deals, then the big one, when it comes in, is a rather large layer of icing on your cake.

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Categories Customers, Sales

The Small Beauty of Efficiency Gains

October 22, 2014 //
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When you’re looking to improve what you do, the temptation is to go for far-reaching change, massive innovation, that kind of thing.

It’s far better in the long run to look for the small efficiencies, and to look for them all the time.

When you visit the R&D facilities of a Formula 1 racing team, you see people striving to shave thousands of seconds off racing times with the most miniscule adjustment to things like aerodynamics. A few thousandths of a second is a few metres at top speed. A bunch of a few thousandths of a second is a commanding advantage.

Compare the touch-typing keyboardist with the one who has learned their own way, maybe using half their available digits and crossing hands across the workspace as they type. Imagine over a working life the enormous time savings formed from the collection of a vast number of infinitesimally smaller micro-movements by typing properly. Could you retire a year earlier if you were more productive over a 3-decade career in front of a computer, in a business where your productivity correlated to your profitability? Probably.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t look to change the game, out-think the competition, or disrupt the business model. Not at all. But you need to do it against a background of continuous improvement. The little things add up to much more than constantly battling the big things.

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Categories General, Strategy

Selling to People Too Busy to Buy From You

September 26, 2014 //
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Even when you’re convinced you have a strong case for your prospect investing in you, it can still be really, really hard to let your prospect know that. These people are so busy it seems they don’t have the time or the inclination to fix the situation by talking with you, and that’s usually because they’re being approach by 19 other people who feel they have the answer to the prospect’s problems.

These people are practically impossible to reach. They don’t take calls, they won’t take meetings, they don’t read your emails, they bin your brochures, they’re ‘in a meeting’ if you call into their office. So how do you get through to them to persuade them that you are one of the 3 things they really must do on a given day?

There are three very important things to bear in mind. Firstly, you have to keep your message succinct. You need to be able to articulate in a clear, understandable fashion what you can do for these people. You will inevitably get their voicemail or their gatekeeper when you call, so you need to crystallise this when you leave your message. After all, you want them to call you back, so if you can’t get to the point quickly, they will never hear it.

For example: ‘Hi Jane, this is Paul Dilger. I can reduce your working week by 5 hours. I know this because it’s what our customers tell us. I need 20 minutes of your time to prove it to you. You can call me back on 12345678. Thanks for listening.’

Or maybe: ‘Hi Jane, this is Paul Dilger. My research tells me you’re only invoicing 85% of the work you’re actually doing for your clients. I can get that up to 100% within a week with our software. That’s an extra 15% for zero extra effort. You can get me on 12345678 to see how it works. Thanks for listening.’

Secondly, you need to make sure that what you’re selling is a major priority for them. Will it hurt them if they don’t fix it, or can they put up with it? If you’re not important to them, you have no chance.

Thirdly, you have to make it straightforward for them to deal with you, including buying from you. Simplicity is the key. Simple is harder to do, but yields better rewards.

For those with a major thirst for this subject area, there’s plenty of really good stuff written about the methodology of selling to busy people. Jill Konrath‘s SNAP Selling is a good example.

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Categories Marketing, Sales

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part III

August 8, 2014 //
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Do you ever fly with ‘low fare’ airlines? I do, frequently. We are blessed with 2 in Ireland. One’s called Aer Lingus, the other is called Ryanair.

Aer Lingus used to be quite up-market. It still is up-market to the US, but has joined in the race to the bottom on the cut-throat European routes. The pilots are good too. As my son said to me a few years ago when he was 9 years old, ‘Daddy, can we fly Aer Lingus? Their planes land like shadows.’

Ryanair competes on price and punctuality. When it’s not punctual, you feel cheated, violated almost. The pilots are learning their trade while at Ryanair I think. The landings are as if they lose interest at an altitude of 2 metres and drop you onto the tarmac. Our landing the other day was bone-shakingly hard, even by Ryanair standards. We are talking a free chiropractic session thrown in for the fare.

Vertebra realignment anyone?

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part II

August 6, 2014 //
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UK train travel is legendarily expensive, and usually fashionably late.

I had occasion to travel from a major city to London the other day. It’s a major inter-city service, chocka-block full, where not to reserve a seat means you’re making your own seat.

There was no wi-fi on the train. Yes, you read that right, no wifi. This is 2014, in the first world. Heck, they’ve had wifi on Irish trains for years!

I find that unbelievable. For an international visitor, business as well as tourist, you rely on a reliable wifi service. Not to offer one, as part of such an expensive service, boggles the mind.

The train arrived fashionably late too.

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part I

August 4, 2014 //
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In the old days of travel, you never really knew when the bus was going to come along. Yes, there was a published timetable, but it only ever bore a passing acquaintance with reality. They came when they came, that was it.

Nowadays, as I observed in the UK recently, you have electronic signs telling you – presumably via GPS – when the next bus is due to arrive. I think this is supposed to manage your expectations better, but it still has only a passing resemblance to the agreed passage of time. This has the opposite effect of what is intended. Sometimes a bus will be 25 minutes away for half an hour, by which time you know it has been cancelled because the next one has turned up.

At other times the bus might be 8 minutes away, but the subsequent minutes are long ones, it being 2 minutes away for 2 minutes, then 1 minute away for 2 minutes, then ‘due’ for 2 minutes. Somewhere there’s an awful lot of rounding going on.

It’s progress, Jim, but not as we know it.

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

The Catharsis of Sport

July 21, 2014 //
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Everyone needs a passion to keep them going through the cycles of work and the seasons of the year. I’m not talking here about loved ones, your family and friends. I’m talking about vices: music festivals, music, live theatre, hobbies, travel or holidays, that kind of thing. These are high points that can anchor a period in your life and stand out from the day-to-day stuff we do in order to afford to enjoy the high points.

For me it’s the catharsis of sport, both playing it and watching it. Participating in sport and attending or watching broadcasts of key sporting events define the time of the year for me. Let me walk you through a typical year of this sports fan, plucked out of my head without the need to check the calendar:

January – dark, miserable, poverty-stricken. Just in time, the Australian Open tennis hoves into view to save the one month that’s pretty much a waste of time. A foreign bonus comes to close the month down, in the form of the Superbowl. We in marketing can kid ourselves we’re working by watching the ads on youtube.

February – when you think Spring will never come, the 6 Nations Rugby championships comes to the rescue, closely followed by the business end of Champions League football.

March – more rugger and more soccer. US Sweet Sixteen and Final Four college hoops if you’re into that stuff. And is that the imperceptibly lengthening and warming days of Spring I detect?

April – the Masters golf at Augusta. The best major, though I’ve never been able to pin down why. Yes, and the snooker world championship too. Stick with it, it’s a drug.

May – the reward of a monster month. The death throes of the football and rugby leagues, the Champions League final, the Heineken Cup final and the best tennis major to attend – apparently; it always sneaks up on me before I’ve thought about summer trips – the glorious French Open. The lung-bursting, clay-drenched minute-long rallies.

June – Ah, the summer is here in earnest. The US Open golf tournament, the toughest major. Anyone for cricket? There’s usually a test series to follow, and the athletics Diamond League circuit winds up. The NBA finals remind me that I’m not ideally built for the hoops. Oh and Wimbledon, aka Wimbers, always the last week of June and first week of July. Happy days.

July – The Open, at the home of golf. Four halcyon days, even if the weather’s howling.

August – The US Open tennis. Hotter than the hinges of Hades, rather like the Australian Open. Supreme athleticism and the lungs of Miguel Indurain required. Sometimes they sneak the US PGA in as well during August, and so our cup over-floweth.

September – The baseball action gets down to the nitty gritty. Decent footie awaits as the Champions League swings into action with group matches to lift the mid-week blues.

October – The Autumn rugby internationals give us an annual reminder of why the southern hemisphere lads are better than us northern folks.

November – More rubgy, the final group matches in the Champions League, and the ATP tennis finals as we wind down for the holiday period.

December – Crimbo! Far too much on to think about sport, kind of, although between Christmas and New Year the good people from the darts world are good enough to give us two rival championships to help us finish off the turkey fricassee. We’re usually getting tonked at the cricket by the Aussies down under as well.

Bonus events in the summer can really make the summer: a world cup or an Olympics every second summer. The autumn is enhanced beyond measure by the biennial Ryder Cup. A Lions rugby tour or a Rugby World Cup can make the winter.

Boy! Anyone would think that there can’t be any time left for family and work. Work hard and play hard is the only way to get through it :-).

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Categories General
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